"Holiday Wars" highlight need for school choice
By Thomas M. Sipos
web posted December 12, 2005
While the First Amendment's Establishment Clause forbids
government from promoting religion, that same amendment's
Free Exercise Clause protects its open practice. The tension
between these clauses is most evident during the "holiday
season." How government resolves that tension is often
confused, contradictory and discriminatory. And while it may be
the opposite in the Bible Belt, here on the coasts, perhaps
motivated by sensitivity to minority faiths, the bias is often against
Christians.
On May 20, 1998, Catholic League president William Donahue
testified before the US Civil Rights Commission that in
"Manhattan Beach, California, a public school removed a
Christmas tree from school property after a rabbi objected that
the tree was a religious symbol; however, the school allowed the
display of a Star of David. ... in Mahopac, New York, Boy
Scout students were barred from selling holiday wreaths at a
fundraiser, even though a wreath is a secular symbol; Hanukkah
gifts, however, were allowed to be sold at the school's own
fundraiser."
Yet government does not consistently regard Jewish symbols as
secular. Donahue adds, "I confronted an attorney for New York
City Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew regarding the practice of
banning crèches in the schools while allowing menorahs. At first,
she cited the 1989 County of Allegheny v. ACLU decision to
buttress her case, but when I pointed out that that decision
undermined her case -- making the argument that the high court
declared a menorah to be a religious symbol, not a secular one
-- she quickly retreated. Such ignorance strikes me as willful."
Adding to the confusion, US Supreme Court nominee Samuel
Alito is unconvinced that menorahs -- or crèches -- must be
banned from state property. On July 1, 2005, the Washington
Post reported that, while on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals,
Alito "wrote for the majority in 1997 in finding that Jersey City
officials did not violate the Constitution with a holiday display
that included a creche, a menorah and secular symbols of the
Christmas season."
But despite Alito's opinion, in a lawsuit against New York City's
Department of Education, Andrea Skoros alleged that her sons
were "coerced" into coloring menorahs at school, were taught
the story of Hanukkah but not Christmas, and that their schools
displayed menorahs, dreidels, Kwanzaa candelabras, wreaths,
bells, Santa Claus, snowmen, and Islam's star and crescent (for
Ramadan). Skoros requested that Nativity scenes be added to
include Christianity.
School lawyers argued that, unlike menorahs and Islam's star
and crescent, Nativity scenes did not represent a historical event.
Newsday's Wil Cruz quoted Skoros as saying that her sons
were "coerced to accept Judaism and Islam at the expense of
their Catholic beliefs." On February 18, 2004, Brooklyn Federal
Judge Charles Sifton upheld the holiday displays, ruling that
Nativity scenes were "purely religious" whereas the others had
"significant secular connotations."
Sifton's ruling illustrates an ominous Establishment Clause
loophole. If government can declare some religious symbols and
stories to be secular and historical, and others to be "purely
religious," then government can allow favored religions to
circumvent the Establishment Clause -- much like African slaves'
rights were circumvented by declaring them to be "not persons."
One solution may be to declare that symbols that are in any way
religious are religious, whatever else they may be, and hence
treated the same as all other religious symbols. But that still
leaves government in charge of interpreting the rules, and if
government were an honest broker, and men were angels, we
wouldn't have so many contentious school board elections or
lawsuits to begin with.
A better solution may be to avoid such conflicts altogether by
reinforcing "separation of church and state" with "separation of
education and state." School vouchers would be a start,
empowering low-income parents to choose whether to send their
children to a religious school, or multi-religious school, or secular
school. Right now, parents sending children to private schools
must pay twice; taxes for public school and tuition for private
school. That's hardly fair.
Those opposing school vouchers have argued that they don't
want their taxes promoting religion. Andrea Skoros may say that
public schools are no guarantee that that won't happen.
In private life one can celebrate -- or not -- as one wishes, and
protest or boycott businesses one feels slighted by. You vote
with your wallet. Let's extend that vote to low-income parents
seeking to educate their children.
Thomas M. Sipos is Vice Chair of the L.A. Westside region of
the California Libertarian Party. His novels include Vampire
Nation and Manhattan Sharks. His bio & contact info:
http://www.CommunistVampires.com/author.htm
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com